The Invisible Mentor Interviews Steve Olsher, the Reinvention Guy Part Two

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Steve Olsher: I am the author of The Journey to You: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Meant to Be, the creator of the Reinvention Workshop and founder and host of Reinvention Radio, which is based out of Phoenix.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Steve Olsher: As an entrepreneur they seem to be one and the same. I move forward in my personal life I carry the message with me that stems from my professional life and that helps to drive the relationships that I have in a way that is meaningful is “Let Love Rule.” That’s my personal and professional motto. That drives the way I interact with the world on both a personal and professional level. Sometimes I slip up, I’m not perfect by any stretch, but I do believe that by having that motto it transcends the line between personal and private and professional life. A lot of people stop their professional life at 5:00 pm, but ultimately what I would love for people to do is heed that inherent gift and turn their avocation into their vocation, and if they can do that, their life will become a vacation. I don’t think there has to be a significant distinction between your personal and professional life and that’s certainly what I’m aiming for.

Avil Beckford: What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?

Steve Olsher: We touched on this earlier, that I didn’t get on path earlier.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Steve Olsher:

No lines in the sand.

You can always go back to pumping gas.

Discover your “WHAT” and become very clear on who you were born to be and pursue that with reckless abandon.

If you’re not growing you’re dying.

There is no such thing as failure.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

Steve Olsher: I love spending time with the family and I’m also a practitioner of Brazilian jujitsu, and I have been doing that for over 10 years. I love a good laugh and I love to share the intimacy with my wife and really try to make the most out of this life where there are no guarantees.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Steve Olsher: It’s brainstorming. There are no great ideas that come out of a vacuum. You have to be willing to enrol others, and what it is that you are trying to do with the ideas that cross your mind. You cannot deny the power of synergistic thinking.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

“The destination is the road, the journey is the destination” is my quote. This is one of the more powerful quotes that I carry with me. This helps me to keep on point with eliminating my ties to expectation, material desires or to outside influences, and providing the understanding that nothing magically happens when you draw this line in the sand, and you cross it. All you do is draw additional lines. I try to live my life without drawing those lines in the sand, and however it is I believe I’ll feel, do or be when I accomplish what it is I set myself up to live my life for, if I can be and do that and have those experiences, my life becomes very powerful today.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

It’s a roof over my head, a family to love and food to eat. As long as you have those you are inordinately successful. Success is about being focused and clear on the one thing you were born to do, and pursue that with reckless abandon. If you do that you will be inordinately successful.

Avil Beckford: In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

The formula for success is don’t put a formula on it because as soon as you sit there and try to put these line in the sand and say once I get to here then I can start living and being happy and then I can think of myself as successful. That’s the moment you engage in self-sabotage. It’s not a matter of a destination, it’s a matter of awareness, and doing that which provides fulfillment, and if you can pursue that which provides fulfillment, in whatever shape or form that looks like, that’s when you have achieved success. But I will say that one of my favourite definitions of success is, “Having the courage, determination and the will to become the person you were meant and made to be.” I think as long as you can have the courage and the determination and will to become the person you were made to be, you will be inordinately successful.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

There are really only two steps that you need and that is to be successful in your field you need to be an expert in what it is that you are doing. That means that you have to immerse yourself in that field. You have to become clear on what works and what doesn’t in terms of what others have done, and you have to be willing to put yourself out on a line and enrol others in the process. So once you immerse yourself and enrol others, that is the process it takes to become inordinately successful in your field.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Follow the two steps mentioned above.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Being from Chicago Oprah is certainly on the top of the list. I’m so impressed with what she has done coming from where she has been to do what she has been able to do is just amazing. I would simply say, “I’m floored and humbled to be in her presence and I appreciate what she has done for the world with her influence and by following what her heart was compelled to do.”

Jack Welsh I would live to meet from a business perspective. He has been an enormous influence to me and millions of others and I just appreciate his way of thinking.

Dr. Martin Luther King who is gone. I would say, “I’m humbled and honoured to be in his presence,” and just what he has been able to do, in terms of standing for what he believes in and having a shameless conviction about who he is and what he was destined to do and the impact he had on others to follow his example.

Mahatma Gandhi for the same reason as Martin Luther King and to be in his presence, and learn from him. It would be amazing to spend some time with him.

Last but not least would be Buddha or Jesus Christ just to be able to spend time in the presence of people who are so sure of they are and what they stand for and really just fly in the face of any distractions or discouraging naysayers and really just do what they can do to heed their inherent blueprint and help others move forward in that same way. That would be an amazing meeting.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

I think the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has given me the most takeaways, and that’s how I define a book that has had a profound impact, if in fact there are takeaways that stick. That book more than any other has provided takeaways that I implement and leverage on a daily basis. That to me is a sign of a good book if it provides new ways of thinking that stick.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Avil Beckford: What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Lenny Kravitz is my guy, so from a music perspective it’s going to be Let Love Rule and from a movie perspective I love the movies that make me laugh so it going back to something like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, or one of the goofy Wayans Brothers movies, it has to be something that is going to make me laugh.

The fact that I’m alive and I think that too often we take for granted the value of life, and I’ve got all my limbs, I wake up in the morning and I can do what it is I want to do in terms of being able to pursue that which provides the most fulfillment for me. That to me is what life is really about.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Nurturing your souls come from sharing love with your family. Nurturing my soul is seeing how my work affects others and helps them to become very clear on who they are, what they were born to do, and help them create that plan of action for getting there. That nurtures my soul more than anything.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

I would wish for people to stop and appreciate what they have because I think that as a western world that our lives are driven by outside influences and material desires. I wish that people could realize that contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and gratification only come from within. You are never going to find it outside of yourself.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

When I have my kids snuggling with me and my wife on my arm. That’s certainly when I’m happiest.

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Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that’s why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people.

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Avil Beckford is the founder of Ambeck Enterprise & The Invisible Mentor, a spot where professionals mentor themselves with expert interviews, biographies, book summaries/reviews, and tips and resources.

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The Invisible Mentor - because you are never alone! This blog is about professional development: Interviews, book reviews/summaries and mini biographies. In 2013, I launched the first Virtual Literary World Tour, and in 2014, I embarked on a journey to an informal classical education. In 2015, Join The Invisible Mentor 2015 Reading Challenge today, connecting the ideas from the books you read! If you find the content valuable, please consider making a donation. I spend more than 200 hours each month to bring you invisible mentors who you can learn from!